After years of success in Japan, QR codes are finally beginning to emerge as a legitimate marketing tool in the US, and mobile tagging with QR codes is a great way to demonstrate leadership to your clients and prospects.
When Best Buy added QR codes to their product fact tags in all their U.S. retail stores last September, it made them the first national retailer in the US to acknowledge the future potential of mobile tagging. Since then, we’ve begun to see an explosion of new and creative ways to use the two-dimensional bar codes to enhance the marketing efforts of retailers and other businesses.
Some grocery stores are now using QR codes in the meat department to provide a wine recommendation for the tenderloin on sale, or to add a QR code with a recipe on an end aisle display. In both cases, using QR codes offers the potential to not only increase sales, but also to engage their customer in a way that builds brand loyalty without the façade of inflated price penalties for not using a shoppers card for that store.
The real estate industry is beginning to discover the selling advantages of replacing flyers on a lawn sign with a mobile tag that is never out of stock, and providing an on-site video tour wherever the QR code is placed. Tech savvy commercial real estate brokers are using QR codes to provide a 24/7 virtual salesperson to vacant retail storefronts. By scanning the 2D bar code, the reader is taken to a site with all occupancy, costs and local code details on the space
Now on newsstands, the 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition contains QR codes throughout the issue that provide access to extras such as videos, outtakes from photo shoots, interviews and personal profile data on models as well as additional information on the swimsuits that are featured in the issue. Readers are able to share what they find through social networks. Readers can also download the Swimsuit Mobile application by scanning codes found in the magazine. The codes are also featured online through the various websites associated with the magazine. Time officials see QR codes as an opportunity to revive the print medium by offering a way to provide more versatility for advertisers than the iPad and other tablets, which many are hailing as the future of the print medium.When the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools posted an abstract black-and-white square as its Facebook status update last week with no accompanying explanation, responses ranged from Huh? to Hurrah! depending on the users knowledge and use of their smart phone. In this case, the QR code led the smart-phone-savvy reader to an online schools survey.
QR codes to become an integral part of marketing in US.
Many tech experts and bloggers believe QR codes are on their way to becoming marketing and sales tools as ubiquitous as Facebook or texting and as familiar to US consumers as they already are to people who live in Japan and Europe.
MediaPost recently reported that 57 percent of Facebook and Twitter users said they have scanned a mobile bar code at least once in the past year, while as many as 40 percent had done so five or more times in the past year. A survey by Scanbuy found that mobile bar code usage jumped 700 percent in 2010 compared with 2009, with a big uptick during the Christmas shopping season when big-box retailers like Best Buy started adding the codes to their product packaging.
QR codes add another way for marketers to engage customers, but compatibility issues may hinder acceptance.
AT&T launched its own proprietary technology in August that requires the download of a free AT&T reader to scan. Microsoft has developed its own tags and compatible tag readers. A host of freebie websites have multiplied online that allow novice users to create their own unique alphanumeric embedded square bar codes by entering the data they want bar code swipers to be directed to.
With the resulting mix of codes and code-readers, and the variety of smart-phone systems — iPhone and Android, for example, are sold embedded with a different reader — one challenge of more widespread use is overcoming compatibility issues.
Robert Russell, AT&T's Atlanta-based mobility product management marketing director, said that global discussions are already under way to make the use of bar codes more standard. AT&T's scanner, he said, is able to read the three most widespread types of 2D codes.
"A lot of what's being discussed is how to make this ecosystem more standard," said Russell, speaking from Barcelona, Spain, where the Mobile World Congress was convening recently with standardization of mobile reading technologies part of the discussion.
Bar code information offers new potential for targeted marketing.
One advantage for marketers is the ability to gather even more data that will enable companies to keep tabs on who's using the bar codes. "Every time a code gets scanned, it brings 20 to 30 different metrics associated with the consumer, from the type of operating system being used (in the phone) to other things a consumer has voluntarily decided to enter into the scanner's settings," such as gender, age or other demographic information to create a user profile, Russell said.
Where QR codes go from here is limited only by the imagination of the marketer. Want more info and ideas? Dan Smigrod, CEO and Chief IDEAologist at GREAT!, a promotions agency in Atlanta, has several good posts on how to use QR codes. Follow this link to see his thoughts on ways to use this innovative technology to grow your business.
Helping your clients discover new ways to go to market is essential in today's agency environment. Are you leading your clients in exploring mobile tagging? If not, why not?
